This Will Help You Believe in Yourself (in the Face of Self-Doubt)

Self-doubt is real and it’s paralyzing. It will cripple you and prevent you from taking action or moving forward. Doubts come across as you trying to help yourself by “being honest” with yourself. Self-doubts never help you. They hinder you.

Every successful person you know has experienced self-doubt as some point in his or her career. It’s the ability to overcome it that matters most to your life now and in the future.

The most resilient people can challenge themselves to the extent that they can stay inside their productive zone and continue being motivated and happy, and functioning at their highest capacity.

Most people can’t shake off negativity. It cripples dreams. You can’t live in self-doubt all the time. You can’t launch or do anything significant because you are mostly afraid of failure.

Sometimes you can be over-whelmed by the number of things you need to get done. But if you put your mind to it and convince yourself enough, you can overcome your fears.

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly,you cease forever to be able to do it.”―Peter Pan

If you are living with an incredibly self-defeatist attitude, this post can help you overcome it. These are things we can all to improve our effectiveness and how much work we get done.

Take things one day at a time

“As always, sleep, exercise, social time, and nutrition are also important, but those things will differ for everyone. Focus on the small things and build yourself back up to a point where you are accomplishing something valuable each day, and try to get out of your rut.

Taking things one day at a time will help, but don’t worry if you slip from time to time. Once you are in a ‘flow zone’, be conscious of things that are pushing you in either direction.

It’s very difficult running a startup/business and maintaining balance, because there’s always something more you can do. Accepting that you are at your best when you are inside the flow zone has helped me immensely.” reddit user, 9190vc

Put the past behind you

“No doubt you’ve had negative experiences when it comes to taking on new challenges. Research shows—and our experience bears out—that most of us tend to make irrational comparisons between a past bad experience and a current situation. But painful memories don’t have to remain obstacles to change.” Thomas J. DeLong, HBR

Give yourself permission to try…and try again.

Self-doubt never disappears. Over time, you just get better at dealing with it. It will greet you every time you fall out of your comfort zone and whenever you strive to do something great.

But know that it’s not something you have to fear or resent. Your doubts are only thoughts, not your future. Sure, something may go wrong. But if you never try, you’re losing an opportunity to improve your life. Are you willing to risk that instead? Melissa Ng, tiny buddha

You are not your failure

“I still cope with self-doubt, as I’m sure 99.9% of entrepreneurs (struggling or not) do.

One think that helped me was realizing everyone fails. Literally everyone fails before they succeed. And until you start making mistakes, you can’t start learning from your mistakes.

So I just got out there with the attitude and I’m gonna fail, it’s okay, and it’s along the path to success. As long as you learn, failure is a good thing.

I actually don’t trust or would work with someone if they told me they never failed.” reddit user, roodleguy

Exercise your confidence

“If you feed your confidence you’ll starve your fear. So in small and manageable situations, practice acting confidently – even if you don’t feel confident. Speak up in a meeting. Introduce yourself to someone new.

Challenge yourself to do something a bit beyond your comfort zone. As you take action and see some success in these smaller situations, you’ll feel more and more confident.

Your increased confidence will allow you to tackle riskier actions that have a higher payoff in the long run.” Angel Chernoff, Mac and Angel

Create a bigger why

“If you’re consistently paralyzed by self-doubt, it could be that you don’t have a reason that is stronger than the doubts themselves.

For example, if self-doubt is keeping you from starting that business you keep talking and dreaming about, it could be that you’re more in love with the idea of starting a business than you are the action of starting a business.

Either that, or you haven’t sold yourself on the reasons you’re really doing it. If you’re not passionate about it, self-doubt can eat you up.” Travis Robertson

Founding Editor @Alltopstartups,
Contributor @Entrepreneur, Columnist @Inc. Magazine and Curator at Postanly (his free weekly digest of the best life and career improvement posts on the web. Subscribe for free.